Lose And Maintain

I found a new website, new to me anyway. Healthvault.com is a Microsoft site that gives advice on exercise and diet for those of us wanting to lose weight.

Remember now that Microsoft is in the business of selling things to consumers so don’t run out and buy a bunch of things you don’t need, but having said that, there’s some good advice and some good products that some of us could use. The site also lets you store all your medical information in an organized way so it’s easy to find and lets you set up a diet plan and keep track of your progress.

One point the site makes is to create a weight goal and track your weight regularly like every third day. Any more often and you could get discouraged by a lack of results. Some experts will tell you to only weigh once a week, you do what’s right for you. Personally, I weigh in every Friday morning before I eat or drink anything.

Next is to track your exercise, you’re more likely to do it if you track the exercise and I’ll explain how. I’ll use myself as an example. I work out Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings. I start by riding a stationary bike for 20 or 30 minutes. I want to increase my heart rate to 110 or 120 before I exercise with a weight-bearing machine or free weights. You have all seen those machines where you set the amount of weight you want to use and then sit on a seat and push or pull on the bar until your muscles are sore.

All the gyms have machines like that. If you’re not used to using a machine to exercise it’s easy to overdo. If you notice today all gyms have trainers. First of all, a trainer will help you from hurting yourself. He or she can also show you how to properly use the machine so you have a chance for results. The treadmill is the most popular machine for increasing your heart rate, I like the bike. On the bike there are 3 things that I track in a journal, the time, how many revolutions per minute, and the resistance number which you can change while riding the machine. When you are a beginner, you want to complete at least the 20 minutes so don’t use too much resistance or try to pedal too fast. Always complete the exercise first, you can always increase things later. With a bike or treadmill you start out slow for 3 to 5 minutes, that’s called warm-up, do 20 minutes at your target heart rate, and then do 5 minutes more at a slow speed to cool down. The target heart rate may be a new term for you. A rough calculation would be the number 220 minus your age. If you are 60, for instance, your target heart rate would be 160. Now that rate would be for someone in good condition with few medical problems. If you are under a doctor's care you want to ask him about your target heart rate and maximum heart rate.

Seniors will benefit the most, they’ll see results in just a few weeks, but you need to get advice and help. If a senior is just beginning to exercise, you can get advice and or help at a senior center, at the YMCA (you should join) I love the pool, or a local health club (look for a health club with a pool).

When I start the weight-bearing exercises I always do at least six exercises, if I have the energy I’ll do eight. The way you track these is to first use the same ones every time and write them down in column format at the left of the page. In the next column, you would write the number of sets you did that exercise and in the last column, you would put the number of reps in each set. Ideally, you want to do an exercise for example “sit-up” 10 times. O.K., that’s one set. You rest a minute and then do 10 more, that’s the second set. Rest again, then do 10 more and that’s the third set. When you use weight it’s the same principle. First, you journal the exercise, then the weight your using and the number of sets, and the number of repetitions.

You want to use a weight that you can handle comfortably. You can get a book at the library about weight training. Before I say any more about journaling, I want you to know that weight training or building muscle is what makes your body burn fat. I don’t weight train because I love it. It’s good for my heart and helps me maintain my weight. To be perfectly honest, learn to like it you’re going to be exercising for the rest of your life. You stop exercising and you start to stiffen up. All those aches and pains that come with aging actually come from not exercising and over a long period of time without exercising you get aches and pains. It’s really not due to age.

Back to exercising, picking the right weight for each exercise is critical. You want to do three sets or repeat the exercise three times, so pick a weight like ten pounds or maybe five pounds for a person just starting out. You have to learn to perform the exercise properly. With weights in hand perform the exercise at least 8 times, rest and do the second set of 8, then rest and do the third set. If that was really easy, next time do 3 sets, 12 repetitions, and try to keep building until you can do 3 sets, 15 times in each set. After that, you’re ready to increase your weight. Not too much, remember you have to be able to do 3 sets of 8 reps. If you can’t do that much, you increased too fast, go back to the old weight. Wait a couple of weeks and try again. It’s not about the weight, you want to challenge the muscle but you need to do the exercise properly or it’s all for nothing.

Walking is a good way for a beginner to train for more exercise or to exercise between your days of weight training. Your muscles need time to recoup from the last workout. If you workout 45 to 60 minutes then you need an every other day schedule. If your workout 2 hours a day you might need two days off in between. On those off days, you can walk. A brisk 30 or 45-minute walk is good for your weight loss program.

I don’t know how much you want to lose and getting too aggressive will only set you up to fail. Older people will respond really well to exercise, but you want to talk to your doctor. He might want you to monitor your blood pressure or heart rate while exercising. On the website I mentioned earlier you can find information about devices and where you can buy them. Most everyone can benefit from exercise no matter what condition you’re in but talk to your doctor first. You’re not too big or too old or too weak, there are exercises for everyone.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

A New Way Of Eating, What Does That Mean?

Most fitness fanatics are going for lean, slim bodies. It’s trending now and the most popular meal plan today is “fasting”. So what does that mean?

Fasting is really about the sporadic eating of healthy foods. In other words, most of us have the same meal plan we grew up with and our parents have the same plan they grew up with. Doesn’t sound like that’s a bad thing, but humans today are not the same type of people are parents or grandparents were. Our ancestors basically ate on the run. They ate when they had food and when they had time. We eat on a schedule that was handed down through the last several generations. You eat when you get up, and again at mid-day, and again in the evening. Why is that so important? Well, today we realize it’s not important.

When a child is born they eat several times a day because they are not attached to their mother anymore and they are used to that continuous feeding. But as they get older you notice that their appetite changes. They want to skip meals, and they’re not hungry as much. Yes, they're still growing but they have the instinct of knowing when they need food and when they don’t. But we try to break them of that inbred instinct and put them on a regimented meal plan whether they want it or not. So, is that the right thing to do or are we changing them for our convenience.

Because humans don’t all require the same amount of calories to maintain body functions, we don’t all need to eat meals frequently. That’s where “fasting” comes in. Fasting is the time that you go without consuming calories. Fasting to lose weight can be done in several ways.

A popular method is the 16/8 plan. You consume all your calories for the day in 8 hours and in the other 16 hours you consume zero calories. You can drink water, black coffee, black tea, or any 0 calorie drink but you can’t eat solid food. The theory behind this is that it takes about 12 hours for your body to process the food in your digestive system and after that, it must burns body fat to keep the body working. So for 4 hours a day, the body is burning the body fat stored in your fat cells.

There’s another method of fasting that might work better for you, it’s the 2/5 method. This method is harder for the beginner. Two days a week, non-consecutive you fast for 24 hours. The other 5 days you eat normally, but healthy. Stagger your two days of fasting so there not close together. The more popular way is to eat around 5 or 6 pm. And then fast until 5 or 6 pm the next day.

Another way to fast is more impulsive. You simply skip meals when you're not hungry. So Some days you might eat 3 meals, some days 2 meals and some days 1 meal.

All 3 methods will reduce calories and you will lose weight over time if you eat healthy foods when you do eat.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Could Fast Foods and Processed Foods Expose You To Harmful Chemicals?

YOU BET CHA!!, If you’re from Minnesota you have probably heard that phrase more than once. In this case, I’m not joking. We have been told that these chemicals in food won't harm us, but why do so many people have Cancer today?

It’s not like the food purveyors actually add harmful chemicals because they want to get sued, but the ingredients they buy can contain chemicals that can harm you over time. In processed foods, in order to keep the price low, manufacturers will substitute a natural ingredient like “sugar cane” for a manufactured product like “high fructose corn syrup” which can be bought for less money and won’t fluctuate in price because it’s man-made.

So, why does the FDA (Food And Drug Admin) allow anyone to do that? The answer is that the foods are made safe for human consumption because if that one item has something like High-fructose corn syrup which can harm people, the product doesn’t contain enough for anyone to get sick. But say you’re eating chips and crackers all day long, you can consume more chemicals than you should. Does that mean I’m going to drop dead? No, but over time you may be at risk for diseases like Cancer. Chemicals in food will be stored in cells and stay there and accumulate throughout your life and because we all have cancer cells in our body the chemicals we consume from the foods we eat will cause these cancer cells to grow until after many years these cancer cells are large enough to be detected.

I don’t mean to imply that you can get cancer from eating chips or crackers, but if you notice on the ingredient label that there are a lot of words that you can’t pronounce, those are chemicals. Chemicals that keep the product from getting stale or spoiling. Some also add flavor and some of them are substitutes for real food. Like onion-flavored crackers. There are no real onions used in making a cracker, only a flavor additive or a chemical that adds the flavor of the onion.

Below is a post from MedicineNet.com that explains

Eating fast food may expose a person to potentially harmful chemicals known as phthalates, a new study suggests.

People who consumed lots of fast food tended to have levels of phthalates in their urine that were 24 percent to 40 percent higher than people who rarely ate take-out fare, the researchers found.

“We found statistically significant associations between the amount of fast-food consumed in the prior 24 hours and the levels of two particular phthalates found in the body,” said study author Ami Zota. She is an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, in Washington, D.C.

However, the study did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between fast food and phthalate exposure.

The two phthalates in question are di(2-Ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and diisononyl phthalate (DiNP), Zota said. Industries use these chemicals to make plastics flexible, and they can be found in a wide array of food packaging and food-processing machinery.

The U.S. Congress has permanently banned the use of DEHP in children’s toys, baby bottles, and soothers, and it has temporarily banned DiNP for the same uses, according to the Environmental Working Group. The group is a nonprofit that focuses on environmental health issues.

The bans are based on concerns that phthalates can affect the development of the male reproductive system, Zota said. The chemicals also have been implicated in birth defects, childhood behavioral problems, and childhood chronic illnesses, such as asthma.

The two phthalates can get into fast food during the processing of the food, explained Shanna Swan. She is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive science in the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, in New York City.

The chemicals also can leach into the food from the packaging in which it is stored, both prior to cooking and when it is served, Zota said.

Fast food even can pick up phthalates from the vinyl gloves that restaurant workers wear to prevent food poisoning, Zota added.

“To reduce exposure to phthalates, my recommendation always is to minimize exposure to processed foods, and the ultimate processed food platform is the fast-food restaurant,” Swan said. “They don’t use anything fresh.”

To see whether people who eat fast food have more phthalates in their systems, Zota and her colleagues reviewed data on nearly 8,900 people participating in a regular survey on health and nutrition conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers defined fast food as anything obtained from a restaurant without waiter or waitress service, or any type of pizza place. All carryout and delivery foods were also considered fast food.

People were considered heavy fast-food consumers if they obtained more than 35 percent of their daily calories from pre-made foods, Zota said.

Zota and her team found that the more fast food participants in the study ate, the higher their exposure to phthalates.

People with the highest consumption of fast food had 24 percent higher levels of the breakdown product for DEHP in their urine samples. Those same fast-food lovers had nearly 40 percent higher levels of DiNP byproducts in their urine compared to people who reported no fast food in the 24 hours prior to the testing.

Grains and meats most significantly contributed to phthalate exposure, the study reported. Grains include a wide variety of items, such as bread, cake, pizza, burritos, rice dishes, and noodles, products made from enriched or processed wheat flour, Zota explained.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Can Beer Cause You To Gain Weight?

When a heavy person in a restaurant or bar is sitting near you drinking beer you might immediately think that they must drink a lot of beer to have a beer belly like that. Not so. Calories are calories and many people overindulge which will cause a beer belly but it’s not always from drinking beer. I use to work with a guy who would drink 6 or 8 cokes every day. I never saw him drink water, he always drank coke. 

You might not know it but the average American will drink half their daily calories. They might eat 1800 calories a day and think they're cutting calories but they consume another 1800 or so calories in drinks every day. Cokes, sweet tea, alcoholic drinks, coffee with cream and sugar, and all those designer drinks at the coffee shop all add up.

Any trainer or weight consultant will always encourage a client to stop drinking calories and drink more water. That is some of the best advice I can give anyone trying to lose weight.

I saw someone today running through the park for a workout, but he was seriously overweight. I thought to myself if I could stop the car and talk to him I’d tell him not to run. First, you can’t run off fat, when you are too heavy to run, just walk. Yes, you can be too heavy to run. Being overweight puts stress on your hips and knees and running will only increase the pressure on those joints and can cause damage.

Walking is a better choice. One hour of extra walking every day will help you lose weight and make you a healthier person. Walking more will lower blood pressure, lower your resting heart rate, and help strengthen your joints. But if you really want to get in shape you have to change your diet. Start counting calories and counting carbs. Depending on your size, 1500 to 1800 calories a day is all you need and only half those calories should be from carbs and those carbs should be from fruits and vegetables, and grains. The other half of your daily calories should be from protein and fats from plants. No calories from drinks and no processed foods. 

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. 

Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Reasons That You Need To Eat Healthier

I reblogged this article from VeryWell.com.

By Shereen Lehman, MS A Healthy Balanced Diet

A Healthy Balanced Diet

Eating right is good for your health. This is so critical that you can just about blame all your health problems including a weight problem all on your diet.  Yes, if you’re more active it’s better for your heart and your joints, and even your brain because your circulation will improve the active you are.

Eating a healthy balanced diet isn’t all that complicated. Just choose a variety of foods from all the major food groups including fruits and vegetables, meats or protein sources, dairy or calcium, grains and cereals, and healthy oils and fats. It also helps if you also want to consume the right amount of calories to maintain a healthy weight and cut back on all the unhealthy junk foods.

Sometimes the question isn’t about what makes up a healthy diet; it’s about why should a person eat a healthy diet. So, in case you’re wondering, here are my top ten reasons why you should eat a healthy diet.

Makes Losing Weight Easier

Oh sure, you can lose weight by eating low-calorie junk food or by following the latest ridiculously restrictive fad diet, but it’s just not the best way to lose weight and be healthy.

Eating a healthy diet that includes lots of fresh low-calorie nutrient-dense fruits and veggies, high-fiber whole grains, and legumes will help you lose the excess adipose and supply you with all the nutrients you need.

Makes Gaining Weight Easier

While there’s much more interest in losing weight, there are a number of people who need to gain weight due to illness or other reasons. Choosing healthful energy-dense foods like nuts, seeds, and dried fruit can help you gain weight without resorting to junk foods that aren’t nutritious.

Reduces Your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Having a history of poor eating habits and being obese are two major risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Increasing your intake of healthful foods and losing weight if you’re obese or overweight may help reduce the risk.

It’s Good for Your Heart

A diet rich in fish, nuts, fruits, veggies, and other healthy foods (like a Mediterranean-type diet) provides you with omega-3 fatty acids and monounsaturated fats that are good for your heart. It also makes it easier to avoid most trans-fats that are associated with cardiovascular disease.

And Reduces Your Risk of Some Types of Cancer

Eating a poor diet, drinking too much alcohol, gaining too much weight, and heavy consumption of red and processed meats are associated with a higher risk of some forms of cancer. And although it’s difficult to say that any particular foods prevent cancer, eating a healthy diet overall may decrease your cancer risk.

Sets a Good Example for Your Kids

If you’re a parent or grandparent struggling with a picky eater, you might find the situation easier to handle if you set a good example for your child. How can you expect your kids to eat broccoli while you’re sitting there eating potato chips? Also, getting kids and picky eaters into the kitchen is one great way to get them motivated to try new foods.

No Need to Waste Money on Supplements

Eating a healthful, balanced diet will provide you will all the essential vitamins and minerals you need every day. I mean, I know there’s nothing wrong with taking a multi-vitamin to ensure an adequate intake, but research indicates there are more health benefits associated with eating a variety of healthful foods, and in some cases, taking supplements can be risky.

Please note, however, if your health care provider has you taking supplements for some reason, you shouldn’t stop taking them without speaking to him or her first.

Helps You Feel More Energetic

Eating a healthy diet provides you with the carbohydrates you need for energy, along with enough B-complex vitamins to help the process along. Don’t forget to start with a healthy breakfast because it helps keep you alert all morning and sets the stage for a day of healthy eating.

It’s Good for Your Skin and Hair

Eating a healthy diet helps you look your best by supplying the nutrients your skin needs to stay supple and smooth and maybe stave off those wrinkles. And your hair needs good nutrition, including plenty of protein, to be soft, shiny, and healthy.

Helps Keep Your Digestive System Healthy

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, most Americans eat far less dietary fiber than they should. needs. Fiber is essential for a healthy digestive system and helps maintain normal cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Eat right and includes lots of fiber sources such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

Eating healthy and avoiding processed foods will help you lose fat. Losing fat will fix all your health problems and give you the energy you had 20 years ago.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

When Did We Start Rewarding Ourselves With Food

I think it all began for Americans after the Great Depression, we never had the large percentage of overweight people that we have today. After the Depression and during the Second World War, everyone had a job and people were making good money. The government started the boom by increasing the military and handing out government contracts to make things the military needed. Americans were making everything from battleships and airplanes to uniforms and helmets. We were at full employment for the first time in decades. People started to move off the farms to the cities for jobs.

This was the beginning of a real economic boom. Workers had the money to buy all those things they never had. Single-family homes started to sell like crazy. The first tract housing development started in California and people wanted cars. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that restaurants started to boom and that trend just kept going right up to today. That seemed to be the beginning of America’s overweight problem. As restaurants became more popular, the types of restaurants grew larger. Fast food started to take hold in the late 1970s and kept growing until today when fast food seems to have control of the market. Today, we have chain restaurants that aren’t really fast food but the fare is so low-end that what they serve is the same as fast food.

The food manufacturing business is so large today the FDA (the government agency that safeguards our food) can’t keep up with all the new products the industry puts out. So we have a lot of manufactured food today, that isn’t really food, it’s just stuff to fill you up with the promise that if you eat it you won’t die. Somehow we have gotten away from eating real food and now most people either eat in restaurants or eat something you heat and eat like a frozen meal.

The end result is that 2 out of 3 adults are overweight and half of those are seriously overweight, I’m talking 40% body fat and taking 7 or 8 prescription drugs just to stay alive. It’s a sad situation and the only way we can change things is if we stop buying processed or manufactured food. Outside the big cities, there is a trend to buy produce in Farmer’s Markets like I remember 60 years ago.

In the 1960s, I lived in a suburb of Chicago and you could still go to a produce market, a real bakery, and a butcher to buy meat. And yes, there have always been overweight people but not as many as today. The food we used to eat was better quality and there were a lot fewer chemicals in our food.

The overweight problem we had in the 1950s and 1960s was caused more by the number of calories consumed due to food preparation and portion size. Today we still have those same problems but today some of the blame can be put on the high carb content of snack foods and the chemical additives that can be addicting like these sugar supplements.

I’m against chemicals in food. I understand that the idea is to keep food costs low by substituting natural foods with artificial ingredients, but why is that so important. Europeans still prefer real food and have been slow to accept processed foods. You can make the case that dairy is processed food but the Europeans don’t see it that way. When you study the food culture of other countries I think you’ll find that North America may be the only part of the world where manufactured food is widely accepted. I wonder why that is?

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Exercise will reshape your body

Exercise alone doesn’t make you lose weight, in fact, exercise can cause you to gain weight. You have to diet. Exercise helps you to retain muscle mass. The object in losing weight is to lose the fat and lose inches. Checking the scale every day won’t help you lose weight. If your plan is working then you’ll lose inches and your clothes will begin to fit better and even become baggy. You’ll start to have more energy and you’ll actually become a happier person. Exercise does play an important part in the weight loss plan.

Once you change the way you eat, start eating healthy foods and stop eating those foods and drinks with empty calories. Food and drinks that do nothing to help you lose weight are empty calories. Some people think they will lose weight by eating low-fat foods or diet foods in the grocery store that are low in calories, but this won’t help you. Prepared foods like TV dinners or ready-made sandwiches, frozen pizzas, and other already prepared foods even bread, or rolls are made to taste good, not good for you. Learn to eat fresh and make your own food. Stay out of restaurants or any place that prepares food to go. There, all the same, the food is made to taste good, that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

So, straighten out your diet and start to exercise and you’ll lose weight. Exercise doesn’t have to mean hours in the gym every week. You can exercise at home with only one small piece of equipment. But you don’t even need that, you can start walking more. I started by walking the dog at night. After dinner, I’d walk the dog for an hour. Big dogs love it and you’ll help them maintain their weight and live longer, while you’ll be helping yourself. Small dogs don’t like walking that much, so mine walked for a while and I carried him for a while, then he walked more and I carried him more, and so on. After a few weeks, he got used to it.

If you do buy equipment, I like the stationary bike, being a senior with sore knees, the bike was perfect, no weight on the joints and it helped my knees. Of course, I did it to get exercise, not for therapy, but I got a two for one out of the bike. The other equipment I like is a rebounder. Dr. Oz says 20 minutes on the rebounder and that’s all the exercise you need all day. If you’ve never seen one and have internet access, google “rebounders”, it looks like a small trampoline. If you look on the Amazon website they have a variety to choose from. My wife bought one at a sporting goods store cheap and has had it for more than 10 years. You can spend a little or a lot, but the only important thing is that it’s rated for a person your weight.

To get back to the point, exercise will help you be a healthier person, but the diet is how you’ll lose weight. You need both if you don’t want to end up shaped like a pear.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.